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Acceptance
Acceptance is the premier episode of the second season of House which first aired on September 13, 2005. Recap A death row inmate is in the exercise yard when he starts hallucinating about the people he killed and he collapses. House interrupts Cuddy and Stacy in a meeting. Stacy leaves and House asks to take the inmate's case. Cuddy finds out that House has stolen her computer password. The patient's heart is beating too fast to pump blood, and House argues the cardiologist couldn't possibly have any diagnoses for that. Cuddy gives House the case. House runs into his team, who are wondering about the ethics of treating a death row inmate. House shoots them down by saying medical care shoudn't be contingent on past good behavior. House goes to the prison to see the patient. He's turning blue from lack of oxygen. The patient needs a respirator, but prison doesn't have one and the warden won't let him leave. House gets Stacy to get a court order to take the patient to the hospital, and Stacy finds out that Cuddy didn't clear it. House points out that the court order orders him to make the patient better. House starts a differential on the inmate. Cameron wants to work on her clinic patient instead. Foreman objects to treating a death row inmate. The obvious thing to check for is drugs, so House orders tests. The team has a discussion about the death penalty. They go to see the patient, but he is agitated and struggling with them. The patient is also thirsty. There are no traces of drugs in his system. They argue again whether they should figure out his underlying condition or just treat his symptoms. Stacy is waiting outside and confronts House about lying to her. She wants to know if he can trust House. House points out that he lied to help the patient. Stacy accepts that answer. The patient notices Foreman has a gang tattoo. The test shows that the patient has acidosis. Foreman guesses that the patient may have taken a drug they don't usually test for. Chase is sent to the prison to look for cut up prescription drugs the patient may have mistaken for narcotics. However, the patient's vital signs drop. House gives him a stimulant to raise his heart rate. He calls Chase, who is searching the patient's cell. Chase mentions that the cell contains copier fluid. House goes to the patient's room and offers him some booze. They have several drinks together. Cameron comes in and catches them. House admits he could have had her, and the patient thinks he's crazy for passing her up. House tells the patient he's figured out the patient drank copier fluid, but the ethanol in the booze is binding to the formic acid from the methanol in the copier fluid so that it can pass harmlessly through his liver. House comes in the next morning with a hangover. Stacy is there to meet him to tell him to send the patient back to prison. However, House still thinks the patient is sick despite the treatment for the poisoning. He goes back to the team to ask them why a healthy man would attempt suicide. He notes that the patient's heart was in distress before he drank copier fluid. Foreman starts a more thorough examination. The patient wonders why they care about him. Foreman performs a lumbar puncture. The patient starts talking about his younger brother, who he hasn't seen since he went to prison. Cuddy finds out the patient is still in the hospital. She decides to discharge the patient. However, he is having abdominal pain. Cuddy thinks he is faking, but House finds blood coming out of his groin. House goes to Stacy about ratting him out. However, he isn't angry, although he did point out that he trusted her. She tells him that she did what she thought was right. House reminds her that's the only reason people ever do things. The patient has part of his intestine removed, and House starts wondering why the patient killed his fourth victim. The first three had an obvious motive, but the fourth one didn't. House asks the patient, who responds that he just got very nervous and when he saw the other inmate looking at him, he went into a rage. The team looks at the patient's rage. House thinks it is an adrenal gland tumor - it releases adrenaline at random intervals. They have to do an MRI, but the patient has tattoos with metallic inks. They proceed, but the patient is in pain. They find the tumor and schedule surgery to remove it. Foreman goes to see House. He thinks that the patient should appeal on the basis that his tumor gave him random rage. However, House is more sanguine - many other people have such rage attacks and don't commit crimes. Clinic Patient Cameron is filling in for House at the clinic when she meets a young woman with a history of anemia and no surviving family. She realizes the patient may have cancer, but the only symptom is a cough. She seeks out Wilson for a consult but he thinks it's obviously cancer. Cameron looks to House for a consult, but he agrees with Wilson - it's lung cancer. He orders Cameron to tell the patient she's dying. However, Cameron tells the patient the tests are inconclusive. She is testing for unlikely but possible diagnoses. House finds Cameron doing a differential on her patient with the team. She still wants to confirm the diagnosis. She asks House to do a lavage to look for infections. House suggests a biopsy, which would be conclusive. She can't understand why House doesn't care about her patient. He points out that Cameron is going through the five stages of impending death instead of her patient. He agrees to the procedure if Cameron will do more of his clinic duty. However, the lavage shows no infection - Cameron has to do a biopsy. The biopsy is positive, but Wilson finds out that Cameron still hasn't told her. Cameron is upset that she's alone. Wilson tells her that he went through something similar. She tells Wilson about her husband and how he would have died alone if she hadn't married him and how someone should be upset about her patient's impending death. Category:Episodes